BUILDING TEAMS OF PROFESSIONALS AND THEIR ROLE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND STRATEGIC BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The article seeks to explore the team building processes as well as to investigate the significance of professional teams in gaining economic growth in the context of strategic business management domain. To attain the research objectives, the study addresses the following issues: provides insights into the team building paradigm and its essential elements, provides better understanding of the contribution of professional teams into economic development and strategic management of businesses, identifies structural and functional patterns in shaping teams of professionals, describes the basic team building models to achieve the efficiency of professional teams’ performances which ultimately drive economic growth and underpin strategic vectors in business development. The following general scientific methods were utilized to tackle the research agenda: generalization – to clarify the content of a ‘team’ category, analysis – to critically assess the approaches and findings of scholars as to the process of team building, their functioning and evolution in the context of economic development and strategic business management; systematization and systematic approach – to address the issues of identifying the essential adherent structural and functional characteristics associated with teams of professionals as well as a range of chart-based and graphic images – for visual presentation of research outcomes and analytical data. The research findings have revealed that building an effective team of professionals has significant implications for further business development and its strategic perspectives and contributes to enhancing business performance indicators, encouraging economic growth as well as facilitates generating sustainable competitive advantages in the long-term. It is argued that given the important economic effects from teamwork activities and modern business imperatives, the effectiveness of professional teams has to be considered through the prism of their essential structural and functional characteristics, that is their particular drivers to boost teamwork efficiency and dynamics; specific approaches to team building; development phases; a team’s life cycle from infancy to its maturity; evolution stages; characteristics of a successful team, team building models and teams’ performance efficiency models. A special focus is put on the importance of understanding the specifics of implementation of each of the four models of team effectiveness in the team building process: IPO model, IO model, IMOI model and the environmental model.